


Binary Stars

by Kedreeva



Category: Good Omens (TV)
Genre: Angel Crowley (Good Omens), Asexual Aziraphale (Good Omens), Asexual Character, Asexual Crowley (Good Omens), Aziraphale and Crowley Met Before The Fall (Good Omens), Demon Crowley (Good Omens), First Kiss, Other, Starshaper Crowley
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-12-13
Updated: 2019-12-13
Packaged: 2021-02-26 20:13:22
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,266
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21784492
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Kedreeva/pseuds/Kedreeva
Summary: Aziraphale meets a star-shaping seraphim before the Fall, and learns a few things about stars.
Relationships: Aziraphale/Crowley (Good Omens)
Comments: 47
Kudos: 514





	Binary Stars

* * *

You know time will give and time will take  
All the memories made will wash away  
Even though we've changed  
I'm still here with you

* * *

Aziraphale watched.

The seraph before him flapped his many wings in a slow, artful dance, and stardust swirled up into dazzling patterns, light bending and sparking off into the void of space as a byproduct of creation. There was no air for Aziraphale’s wonder to catch on, no heart in his chest to give him pause, but he found himself frozen in rapt attention nonetheless.

Not long ago, the Almighty had dismissed her Choir and disappeared, leaving all of the angels at a loss for what to do. Most, like Aziraphale, stuck close to where they had been, hoping for her return. Others had spread out exploring. The seraphim remained at their posts, except for the ones that didn’t, and those were scattered in the far reaches of the universe the same as this one. They could be found out in the vastness of the void, turning matter into a semblance of what they used to sing.

They were lonely creatures, if this one was anything to go by. Even from a distance, Aziraphale could feel the longing in every swirl of the seraph’s wings as he crafted the huge star before them. Aziraphale had followed a trail of achingly beautiful creations to this particular seraph, wishing there was something he could do to help when he finally arrived.

But the thought of doing anything fled Aziraphale the moment he laid eyes upon the being before him now. Now he watched four long, obsidian wings curl inward, the other two spread wide and completely still. Surrounding the wings were rings upon rings, slender wheels rotating in a slow but methodical manner and covered in golden eyes. Each ring was wrapped in holy fire and all of them circled around a bright, burning core.

“Hello, Little One.”

Aziraphale startled, eyes wide as he watched the wheels fall still, a sliver of darkness opening in the golden core.

“You’re very far from where you’re meant to be,” the seraph continued, his voice melodic, practically a song in itself.

Guilt flushed through Aziraphale at the reminder, even though it hadn’t sounded like an admonishment. This seraph didn’t sound like the other angels, the ones Aziraphale used to report to. He sounded softer, kinder.

“Forgive me for intruding,” he said quickly. “I only wanted to see.”

“Oh?” said the seraph, wheels beginning to spin again. “Come closer, then. Come see what I am making.”

Hope chased out the guilt, and Aziraphale began to drift closer. The seraph’s wings shifted and rotated so that the second object they had so gently cradled out of view was revealed. Aziraphale recognized it as a planet, partially crafted, likely meant to orbit the star the seraph had just finished. Aziraphale smiled with three of his four faces, because eagles could not smile, and the seraph’s core brightened in response.

“Do you like it-…?”

“Aziraphale,” Aziraphale told him. “And I do like it, very much. Will you place it with the star you’ve made?”

The seraph hummed a thoughtful note, serene and drawn out, and then the holy fire sitting so innocuously upon his wheels shifted, racing up and down the length of them in excitement. “I will.”

“May I watch?” It was a bold question, and Aziraphale nearly took it back, except for the way it caused the seraph to fall still.

“You want to?”

“Very much,” Aziraphale agreed quietly.

The weight of all of the seraph’s eyes was nearly crushing, right up until his wheels began to spin faster before falling still. “I have not had company before. My name is Crowley. You can watch.”

Aziraphale came closer still, close enough that when Crowley swept a wing up, Aziraphale let it curve around him and draw him inside the safety of the sphere made by Crowley’s spinning wheels. From beside Crowley’s core, he could see the way Crowley worked, marred only by the tilt of wheels. This close, Aziraphale could see that they were not uniform- each circle had a head that held the tip of its own tail in its mouth. Aziraphale could not help but marvel at the intricacies of seraphim. He had never been allowed so close to one before.

Crowley’s wings swept forward and Aziraphale felt the tug they gave to the firmament all around them as Crowley gathered material. It occurred to him, then, that seraphim were not designed for this.

“If I may ask,” he said slowly, giving Crowley time to stop him, “why are you… why isn’t…? Well, She’s stopped creating, is what I mean. Do you know why?”

The light around him dimmed. “She hasn’t stopped,” Crowley told him. “She’s… focusing on a new project.”

There was only one project Aziraphale had heard of, but he had thought it was only a rumor, only a story. “Humans?” he asked.

None of the angels knew quite what to make of such a thing. The Almighty had confided the idea to the Archangels, but it had sounded so absurd. Tiny creatures stuck on a single, tiny planet, with a lifespan of less than a century. Creatures made of gross matter and only touched with enough celestial energy to start them. They would have to consume gross matter to continue their existence, and would be given the power of creation and free will and a new, different kind of love that wasn’t owed to the Almighty, but given freely to one another.

“They won’t be like us,” Aziraphale said softly.

He could feel the way Crowley softened, wheels tightening a little protectively. “They won’t be so different, angel,” he said, though it was not quite a comfort. “They’ll create, the way we do. They’ll just have to work together to do it. They’ll have to work to create things that won’t even begin until they are gone.”

Aziraphale’s own light flickered and dimmed. “I’ve never created anything.”

One of Crowley’s wheels tipped, the eyes rotating to the inside of it so he could see Aziraphale with them. “Would you like to?”

“Oh, I- I don’t think Gabriel would like that very much,” Aziraphale said, gesturing in the direction where they both must surely feel the Archangel, even if they could not see him. “He’d say creating isn’t… my _department_.”

“Gabriel can bend a feather,” Crowley said, tone biting. His wheels began to spin faster, all of his eyes closing except for the ones watching Aziraphale. “Come closer, angel. Touch me, and I will teach you how a star is born.”

Aziraphale hesitated, but in the end, he obeyed. He laid long, spindly fingers upon the glowing orb at the center of Crowley’s form and the fire there licked up to caress at his outstretched palms. A tongue of holy flame curled around his wrist for a second; it didn’t burn, but it did send sparks through him, dizzying his perception such that he could see what Crowley wanted him to see. In that instant, he knew what Crowley wished him to know.

“Oh...” he said, low and soft. “Oh, but you don’t create them at all, do you?” He pulled back a little and, despite that he could not see any of Crowley’s eyes anymore, he felt _watched_. “You’re just shaping the firmament she left you.”

“It’s not that hard,” Crowley told him, his amusement warm under Aziraphale’s breastbone, as though he had left something of himself behind in Aziraphale. “Try.”

It felt close to an order, but though Aziraphale knew it was one he need not follow, it would be silly to refuse. He withdrew from Crowley’s core completely, ignoring the suddenly-barren sensation that threatened to overwhelm him. The flame at Crowley’s core shifted blue for a second before clearing back to blazing gold.

Carefully, Aziraphale extracted himself from Crowley’s rings, just far enough that the star he would shape would not begin inside of the seraph’s being. Then he steadied himself, closed all of his eyes and reached out with the energy at the center of himself. Like Crowley, he contained a burning core, but unlike Crowley, his was usually hidden from view, so much smaller than those of the mighty seraphim. Still, he figured, it was more than enough to dig into the firmament of the heavens and begin to mould it into something new.

Warmth enveloped Aziraphale as he crafted, and he did not need to open his eyes to know that Crowley had wrapped his wings over the space around him. Aziraphale relaxed into his task, following the knowledge that Crowley had given him, hands smoothing over the core of the forming star. He fed elements into it until at last they began to clash and ignite, and he could cradle it in both hands, alive and burning.

“Well done,” Crowley said, voice as warm as Aziraphale felt.

Aziraphale opened his eyes to see that Crowley had created a star as well, one whose song reverberated with his own, clamoring to stay together. Aziraphale released his star, and it began to spin as it was drawn toward Crowley’s slightly larger one. As it went it began to grow, and Aziraphale retreated behind the protection of Crowley’s spinning wheels as Crowley released the second star to spin as well. Aziraphale could feel them singing to one another.

“Why are they doing that?” Aziraphale asked, watching as they grew and grew, spinning away from the angels to take on their true sizes. “Why do they stay so close?”

Crowley’s core warmed with orange light, one of his wings unfurling to reveal the planet he had been sculpting when Aziraphale arrived. This he released as well, sending it spinning out toward the first of the stars, the one he had been crafting when Aziraphale arrived.

“They belong together,” Crowley said, all eyes on the stars as the planet joined them and settled into orbit around the largest. “Binary star systems are difficult to create alone. They must ignite together, and recognize each other. Thank you for helping me make them.”

“Did you know that was what we were making?” Aziraphale asked.

“Yes,” Crowley answered simply. “I’m going to set them close enough that the humans can find them someday.”

Aziraphale turned to see Crowley’s core, still warm with a pleased shade of orange. “The humans?” he said. “Won’t they be made to stay on their planet?”

“Yes,” Crowley said, core brightening a little. “But they’ll look to the stars. They’ll make things to take them out here, someday. They’ll give everything names, as if those things were alive, too.”

Aziraphale considered this. “How do you know?”

Crowley was silent for a long time, all of his eyes steadfastly upon the twin stars and the planet which circled them. At last his wheels tipped and began to rotate as well as spin and his wings folded in until he was nearly just an orb. “She told me,” he said quietly. “She has… so many plans for them.”

Unsure what to make of that, exactly, or of the sorrow in Crowley’s voice, Aziraphale let the subject drop. “What do you think the humans will call our stars?”

Warm amusement bloomed in Aziraphale’s chest again. “Alpha Centauri, together,” Crowley said, with such confidence that Aziraphale believed him. Then Crowley’s wings snapped open and folded around them, the fire on his rings flaring bright. “Someone’s coming,” he said urgently. “Hide.”

“There’s nowhere to go!” Aziraphale said. They were in space. Except for the stars they had just made there was nothing for thousands and thousands of miles.

“In me,” Crowley urged. “Quickly, angel. Please.”

Though Aziraphale had only just met Crowley, he trusted him. There was no reason not to, even though he also had no reason not to trust anyone that could possibly approach. The idea of good and bad had not yet been invented, after all, but Aziraphale was acutely familiar with the concept of being located by unpleasant individuals.

So he winged forward and dove into Crowley’s burning core, his wings folding in tight to shield his own core. The light all around him was so bright it would surely obfuscate his own, rendering him invisible even if someone were to look directly at him. He fell still, wondering just what could possibly necessitate such a fuss, when Crowley’s wings peeled away and revealed the angel who approached.

And he _was_ just an angel, Aziraphale realized. Not an Archangel or seraphim or a throne, not a cherub like himself, not even a principality. He was just an _angel_ , and yet all around him Aziraphale could feel Crowley’s anxiety. It made Aziraphale want to jump out and demand the angel leave them at once, go back to where he belonged, but Crowley had been kind to him and whatever was going on, Crowley had asked him to remain hidden.

“Crowley!” the angel greeted, though it sounded… strange. Guarded, almost. “What are you doing all the way out here?”

“Lucifer,” Crowley said, wheels remaining bright and spinning, all of his eyes open, the changing tilt of his axes obscuring a clear view of his core. “I’m building things.”

The angel, Lucifer, glanced around, his single pair of eyes landing on the newly crafted stars. “Binary stars? By yourself...?” He turned back to give Crowley a look, but Crowley said nothing, and Aziraphale was well-hidden. “Impressive.”

“Is there something I can do for you?” Crowley asked, so small and demure that Aziraphale might have assumed he was the angel and Lucifer the seraph.

Lucifer stared for a long, tense moment, and then his wings opened. “Just remember to come back when you’re done. We’re making plans. You do still want answers, don’t you?”

“Of course,” Crowley agreed, his many eyes closing momentarily in deference.

“Good, good,” Lucifer said, drifting up a little so that he might look down upon Crowley. Aziraphale had never wanted to smite an angel so badly, and that was certainly dredging up a conflict within him. He was fairly certain he wasn’t supposed to want to smite angels at all. “Then I’ll see you soon.”

And with a flick of his wings, he was gone.

Aziraphale waited, patient but anxious, until he felt the swirl of Crowley’s essence close in upon him a little to sooth him. Gently, he extracted himself from the sphere of energy and turned to face Crowley again. The darkened slit that had appeared before did not show this time, but Aziraphale still knew he was paying attention.

“What was that all about?” he asked, trying not to sound like he was demanding anything of an angel he’d only just met. It was not exactly his place to demand anything of seraphim at all.

“It’s nothing,” Crowley said.

Lying had been invented a while ago now, but this was the first time Aziraphale had encountered it and he found that there was absolutely nothing to recommend it. Especially not when it was happening to him. “It didn’t sound like nothing.”

“It’s… complicated,” Crowley amended, and then the slit appeared, fixed on Aziraphale. “You… asked me why She was not creating things. You remember?”

“Yes, and you said She was,” Aziraphale agreed. “You said She was working on the humans.”

“Yeah...” Crowley said. He was quiet for a long moment, and then his wheels fell still. “That’s not… there are other questions, Aziraphale. Ones that may not have nice answers. It would be best if you weren’t around when people like Lucifer start asking them, do you understand?”

Aziraphale did, though he didn’t want to. “And you?” he said softly. “You’ll be asking them, too?”

Crowley didn’t answer.

“I see.” Aziraphale backwinged, ducking between Crowley’s slowly-spinning wheels.

“Aziraphale,” Crowley said. Aziraphale froze. “Please, just… be careful. Don’t get caught up in this. Lie low for a while.”

“I feel I should say the same to you,” Aziraphale told him, discovering sorrow in the same instant, “but I fear it wouldn’t do any good.”

“Probably not,” Crowley said. “But thank you.”

Aziraphale lingered a moment longer, wishing desperately to stay, to try to convince Crowley to leave with him, but there was nowhere a seraph could really hide. The Host could feel them, even down to the lowest angels, the same way they could feel the Archangels as bright spots of power in an otherwise empty universe. There was nowhere Crowley could go that Lucifer wouldn’t find him again, and Aziraphale with him if he stayed.

So he went, not understanding that the ruin of Heaven would follow soon after.

* * *

In truth, Aziraphale recognized the essence that slithered up beside him on Eden’s eastern gate. Even though the fire burned infernal instead of holy, even though there was only one serpentine wheel, uncurled into a wiggly line with only one pair of eyes, even though he stood beside Aziraphale in a mortal corporation, Aziraphale knew him. He knew that he’d been found.

Or at least, he thought he knew.

But the demon did not recognize him. Crowley looked at him and no flicker of warmth lit within his golden eyes. When he opened his mouth to address Aziraphale, it was not with the familiarity Aziraphale hoped for, but with the guarded caution of a near enemy.

And when Aziraphale answered, he stumbled over wanting to say Crowley’s name. It was not the same one anymore.

Crawly, he called himself, pleased.

His dark wings stood out too starkly against the pale new world they’d found themselves in. He belonged to the endless expanses of space, to the deep void. He belonged to places where he could hold stars in his hands and speak gently to angels who knew nothing of creation.

The weight of a flaming sword in his hand burned at Aziraphale’s memory. He was supposed to be a Guardian. He was supposed to keep bad things from happening. Yet Crowley stood beside him, Fallen, cast down from the heavens to which he belonged. Aziraphale had failed to protect him in any way.

When the rain began, he arched one wing over Crowley’s head to protect him from it, and told himself he would do anything to keep from failing to do so again.

* * *

There were times, few and far between, when Aziraphale thought that Crowley remembered. He would catch a glimmer of something here, or an odd feeling there, and the memory of starlight would sit on the tip of his tongue, waiting to crash down between them. In the end, he never let it. After all, he had chosen to protect Crowley, even if that meant protecting him from Aziraphale.

Still… his time on Earth swiftly taught him that some things are inevitable. The sun will rise in the east and set in the west. Mountains will erode over time. Even dams will not stop a river from flowing forever, though it will build up quite a lot of pressure in the meantime.

Crowley was, in his own way, a force of nature. It didn’t matter how much time passed, or where Aziraphale went, Crowley would eventually turn up again. For a while he called himself Crawly, and Aziraphale said it too, right up until Crowley announced he had changed it. Aziraphale had not been expecting to be socked in the gut by Crowley choosing his true name again, but there he was.

That was not the end of it, either. Crowley turned up in Rome, and in Greece, in Italy and in Spain and in Scotland. Aziraphale wanted to ask where they had begun, but always he bit his tongue. Crowley refused to talk about his Fall, and Aziraphale refused to talk about Before, and they met in secret and taught each other that angels and demons were not so different, really.

Aziraphale knew he was not supposed to have clandestine meetings with demons. He certainly was not supposed to befriend one, but he found it impossible to shake the memory of ebony wings curled around him protectively, or the warmth of a seraph’s essence, or the unadulterated joy of learning to create a star.

He couldn’t forget the two they had made together, out there still and orbiting with one another the same way Crowley still circled around behind him, ever-watchful.

Aziraphale desperately wanted him to remember but after six thousand years, he didn’t dare _tell_ Crowley.

But sometimes…. Sometimes he wondered. Sometimes he thought maybe Crowley knew. Sometimes he thought that just maybe, someday, they would be able to say it aloud without the fear of destruction hanging over their heads.

* * *

In the end, it was not the absence of fear that brought the confession, but the overwhelming presence of it.

It was the echo of Crowley’s desperate _It’s a big universe_ and his _We can run away together!_ and the two most devastating words falling from his lips.

Alpha Centauri.

In the moment, Aziraphale had been so anxious, so preoccupied, that rather than hear the two words that mattered most, he had been composing what he would say next. He had been preparing to chase Crowley away again, to keep him out of the destruction that would follow if Aziraphale failed again.

But he _had_ heard them, and in the large hours of the night, sitting on a park bench in Oxford, they came back to haunt him. They wrapped themselves around Crowley’s _You can stay at my place_ like a vice, burrowing into Aziraphale’s heart. There was such a thing as coincidence, but Aziraphale knew how much Crowley loved outer space. He knew that if Crowley was looking to run, fleeing to the nearest star system wouldn’t be where he went. He would go to deep space, maybe even the next galaxy over.

But he had named the one place in the universe that had inextricably bound them together.

So he sat on the other side of the bench, and beside him on the bus, and when he held out his hand, Crowley took it silently. He followed Crowley up to his flat and took the glass of wine Crowley pressed into his shaking hands, and when he found himself sitting on Crowley’s couch, something in him broke.

Aziraphale had existed for a very, very long time. Six thousand years on Earth and more time before that, and the world had nearly ended and they had stood up against Heaven and Hell and held their ground. They had faced down Lucifer and Crowley, instead of bowing to him, had stood tall and prepared to go down fighting… and they hadn’t.

They had survived.

They had survived long enough to know that they wouldn’t. Heaven and Hell would not take their betrayal lying down. They would come for them.

Aziraphale had existed for a very, very long time, and he was likely mere hours away from stopping.

In the face of such overwhelming fear, Aziraphale could not help but think it might be his last chance to tell Crowley what he had been afraid to talk about for so long.

“Crowley?” he said, voice too loud and harsh in the utter silence that had descended. Crowley startled on the other side of the couch and looked up at him with wide, unguarded eyes. Aziraphale didn’t remember him taking his glasses off.

“Angel?” Crowley prompted, when Aziraphale couldn’t figure out how to start. “You okay?”

“I don’t… know,” Aziraphale admitted quietly. “I’ve been thinking about what you said.”

Crowley’s face darkened, his eyes dropping. “I didn’t mean it,” he said, voice cracking over the words. “I wouldn’t have gone off without you. ‘n even if I had… I would have thought about you. I would-”

“Not that,” Aziraphale interrupted. Crowley glanced back up, puzzled now, and Aziraphale sighed heavily. “The part about… Alpha Centauri.”

The ill look returned to Crowley’s expression. “It- that was a ridiculous idea, you were ri-”

“No!” Aziraphale said quickly. “No, it wasn’t ridiculous. It was…. I wasn’t surprised that you asked me to leave with you. Well, not that time. But… why there?”

He met Crowley’s eyes, saw the glimmer of hope quashed by resignation, and somehow he knew. Crowley remembered. “No reason,” Crowley said gently. “It’s just a place.”

“Is it?” Aziraphale said, more sure by the second. “Because I seem to recall it wasn’t much of a place, before you and I put the stars there together.”

Confusion flickered over Crowley’s face before he sagged and some sort of smile twitched at the corner of his lips. “I didn’t think you remembered.”

“You certainly looked a lot different,” Aziraphale admitted, “but it would be hard to forget you, Crowley.”

“You never said...”

“You _Fell_ ,” Aziraphale said, distressed. “And the next time I saw you, you didn’t… you called yourself Crawly. I thought… either you’d forgotten, or you didn’t want to be reminded.”

“And after?” Crowley asked, so softly it couldn’t be an accusation. “When I… told you I’d changed it back?”

Aziraphale didn’t know what to say. Everything felt like it would be only an excuse, the same sort of excuses he had been telling himself for millennia now. He’d had six thousand years to decide how to tell Crowley he knew, what he would say and how he would explain, and not a word of it survived the soft, injured expression on Crowley’s face.

“I should have said something,” he admitted. “Does it count, if I say it now?”

Crowley let out a weak puff of laughter, tinged with relief. “Let’s find out.”

Aziraphale’s heart gave an extra-hard thump, but he managed a smile anyway. His voice, when he spoke, only wobbled slightly. “Well, then, I want to tell you that we’ve met in lifetimes before, out among the stars we helped to make, and I... I _do_ hope that if tomorrow doesn’t… _go as planned_ , we will at least get to meet again in lifetimes after.”

Before he had even finished, Crowley sat up straighter. “It’s _going_ to go as planned,” he said vehemently, with so much conviction that Aziraphale nearly believed him.

“You really think so?” Aziraphale asked hesitantly, sitting up a bit straighter himself with Crowley so close to his personal space. “Heaven and Hell… they’re going to want to punish us.”

“We beat them before,” Crowley reminded him. “We can do it again. Whatever they want to do, they’ll have to deal with both of us. That’s not nothing.”

Aziraphale frowned, just a bit. “And if they separate us?” he asked, heart sinking at the very thought of it. They had come so far, been through so much. He couldn’t bear the thought of being torn apart after so long even though he knew that it was a distinct possibility. “I might never see you again.”

“I won’t let that happen,” Crowley swore, voice cracking as he scooted closer and then hesitated. “I thought I lost you once, Aziraphale. Didn’t care for it. Don’t want to do it again. Not ever. Even if they separate us, it won’t be forever. I promise, I’ll find you again, the same way I did this time.”

Aziraphale nodded, heart lodged in his throat. He had read millions of words, billions of words, over his lifetime. He knew almost every language the humans had ever made up after the tower of Babel fell. His entire bookshop had been filled to the brim with words of all sorts and yet, in this moment, Aziraphale couldn’t think of a single one that mattered.

So instead of trying to find one, Aziraphale leaned across the distance between them, one hand coming up to smooth along Crowley’s jaw a second before he kissed him. The contact was soft, barely-there, and it was six thousand years of unspoken words and six thousand years of wanting and the promise of lifetimes to come. It was everything they had never been able to talk about in all that time, and Aziraphale knew, like he knew how to fly and how to use magic and how to hold a sword, that they wouldn’t talk about it now, either. One night couldn’t _possibly_ be enough to say everything they needed aloud, so Aziraphale said it with the gentle brush of his lips over Crowley’s, palm warm on his skin.

Crowley melted into the kiss as though he knew all the same things, another small, relieved sound escaping him, and Aziraphale could not help but smile as he pulled back. He didn’t go far, Crowley’s hands somehow curled into the lapels of Aziraphale’s jacket without him noticing, their foreheads resting together.

He had been unable to save Crowley once before. He was not going to let that happen again.

“Alright,” Aziraphale said, having made his decision almost unconsciously. “Then let’s make a plan that won’t involve you having to keep that promise, shall we?”

* * *

Aziraphale stared up into the starry night sky, a solid void dotted with twinkling pinpricks of light. He remembered, so long ago, being out among them. He remembered the warmth of sitting beside a gentle red giant, and the feel of nebula dust between his feathers. Down here, he could barely hear the frequencies upon which celestial bodies sang, but he remembered the choir. He remembered the whisper of their energies against his own.

With a smile, he brushed his hand over Crowley’s, relishing the feel of skin upon skin. When Crowley glanced over, Aziraphale lifted his eyes quickly to the stars, and Crowley’s gaze followed.

“Do you miss them?” Aziraphale asked.

“Sometimes,” Crowley admitted. “But not always.”

That didn’t surprise Aziraphale. Crowley usually did seem content doing whatever he was currently doing. “Would you go back, if you could?”

Crowley looked back at him, and Aziraphale just barely caught the flicker of concern. “I can’t… you know that, right?” he asked, gentle but worried.

“Oh, I do,” Aziraphale assured him quickly, nudging at his hand until he could thread their fingers together. “It’s just, you asked me to go off with you, before. You wanted to go when you were scared, but… would you want to go now, if you could?”

Crowley’s grip tightened a little, but he relaxed as he turned his gaze back to the sky. “Maybe,” he said after a few long minutes of silence. “If you went with me, maybe.”

“I don’t miss it,” Aziraphale said, pleased to find it was even true, “but I would go with you.”

Crowley laughed. “It’s a little late to run away together, angel.”

Aziraphale enjoyed the little flush of warm under his skin, along his cheeks. “It wouldn’t be running away,” he said quietly. “But… as I understand it, you must first go away in order to come home, and while I might not want to go away, I quite like the idea of coming home again with you, after.”

That sobered Crowley quite a bit, and he shifted where he was lying down on their picnic blanket to stare up at Aziraphale. A smile crept onto his lips, warm and tender. “Home,” he said quietly. “Yeah. It is, isn’t it?”

Aziraphale squeezed his hand once and then wriggled his fingers free so that he could stroke them over Crowley’s soft hair. He knew it wasn’t a question, so he just smiled back and turned his attention back up to the stars. They were too far north for their human eyes to perceive the paired stars they had made together, but if he closed his mortal eyes and opened his celestial ones, they were visible to him.

They still orbited together, burning and bright and inseparable.

Aziraphale watched, and smiled.

**Author's Note:**

> I'm back!! Nano was a ton of fun, but I'm really pleased to get back to Good Omens. Lots of great stories left to tell!!
> 
> The opening quote on this one is from "Raging Fire" by Phillip Phillips.


End file.
